“It is a trying time for him just now,” said Harriet.
“Yes, yes, it is, Harriet,” said Godfrey, with a tentative eye and eager corroboration. “It is a thing that might be too hard for any man, before which the stoutest heart might flinch.” He paused as though uncertain of his ground.
“I saw Camilla this morning,” said Harriet, her manner forbidding comment. “I drove into the town to call on Antony; I wanted a word with him about my sleeplessness; and she had come in to see him. It is plain how hopeless she and Mr. Bellamy must have been as husband and wife.”
“I don’t know that she and the doctor will be any better,” said Godfrey. “I am sorry she is dragging the doctor in her wake, that he is down again. Ah, Harriet, you were right to show a neutral feeling there. You are above looking down on your fellows. People will take their cue from you. You have done good to a friend.”
“Antony has done all he can for me,” said Harriet.
“Camilla could never have satified Bellamy,” said Matthew. “For one thing her eyes would not always have been turned on him.”
“And why have opportunities if you waste them?” said Jermyn.
“It does seem an odd profession for a man,” said Godfrey, his tone encouraged by his knowledge of his wife’s dislike of ritual rather than by his own training on this line, “to be twisting and turning and dressing himself up. I don’t know why we can listen to him better for that.”
“We can look at him better,” said Gregory. “It is helpful to see him in different aspects. What other profession could he have, that would show him to such advantage? On the stage he would have to be disguised, and that would be unbearable.”
“He makes me envious,” said Jermyn, “and takes off my thoughts, so that I hardly remember where I am.”
“Oh, you think Bellamy a very handsome man?” said his father after a pause. “You think he is what a man should be? He is your type? Well, you know, I think I prefer something a little more solid, myself, something a little less effective and highly toned. A thought more weight and simplicity. Oh so you are all laughing, are you? You think I am talking about myself. Well, I am not; I am doing nothing of the kind.” Godfrey drew his napkin over an unsteady mouth. “What are we coming to, if we can’t say a word about a man’s type, without being taken to be referring to our own? You were talking about yourself then, Jermyn, when you said that Bellamy made you envious. Well, he doesn’t make me envious; that is one thing.”
“Of course I was talking about myself,” said Jermyn. “I hoped I had a better brain, and could make a concession in the matter of appearance.”
“Oh, that is what you thought!” said his father. “Well, I am sure there is nothing I need mind. Oh, why Harriet, it is worth while making a butt of myself to see you laugh, my dear.”
“It is always worth while to display ourselves at our highest and best,” said Gregory.
“You are showing off, Father,” said Matthew. “You and Bellamy are a pair.”
“Oh, well, I wasn’t presuming to identify myself with him, such a fine fellow as you think him!” said Godfrey.
“Mother, you had better go and rest,” said Griselda. “You might get to sleep for an hour before Ernest comes.”
“Yes, darling, you shall do what you like with me. I will come and do as I am told. I feel I might sleep myself.”
“Well, I am thankful that that luncheon is over,” said Godfrey, putting his hands behind his head, and surveying his sons in recognition of an occasion for letting forth his thoughts on equal terms. “Upon my word I was in a panic all through church. I didn’t hear a word of the sermon, not a syllable. I kept on being afraid I should be asked about it at luncheon; ha, ha, I did. Through all Bellamy’s antics I was going over the scene, and totting up the reckoning, until I was fit to swoon. Ah, I am not so unlike your mother as she thinks. I understand what a storm of nerves is as well as anyone. It doesn’t make it any better that it has to be bottled up. I was in a cold sweat when I came into this room, and faced your mother at this table. If ever a man walked up to the cannon’s mouth, I did then. And all of you at my side, my poor boys, not guessing what was ahead! And my poor girl upstairs now, doing what she can! Ah, well, I daresay it has been for the best. It may have done its work, what we have faced. For it was not your mother who faced the most. I declare I had been accusing myself of arrant cowardice, and of behaving to a woman as no man should, and no gentleman could, and that woman my wife; and of encouraging you to do the same! It has been something to go through. Well, I think I will lose myself here, without troubling to get into the library; the library is right across the hall. You can tell me when the rector is due to arrive; Ernest, I suppose we shall have to call him, as Grisel seems to be tending in his direction. Yes, I will let myself go off as I am; I don’t care what Buttermere thinks.”
Godfrey put the paper over his face, and Buttermere, entering, gave a start, and tiptoed round the table with elaborate quiet.
“If Father did care what Buttermere thinks, he would go through a good deal,” said Jermyn, as they went to the library.
“And he speaks of himself as already refined by suffering,” said Gregory.
“I wish I could get not to care. I am terribly ashamed of Father before Buttermere,” said Jermyn.
“Well, shall we lose ourselves or not?” said Gregory.
“Let us rather find ourselves,” said Matthew. “We don’t often get the chance of both our parents’ absence.”
“Matthew, you should say behind people’s backs what you would say to their faces,” said Gregory.
“Father sets us the example,” said Matthew.
“In a fundamental way he does,” said Gregory. “Well, Grisel, is all well upstairs?”
“So well that it makes me nervous about the reaction.”
“Are we all to begin to be nervous again?” said Matthew.
“It is best not to break the habit,” said Griselda. “It should become second nature.”
“Do we ever break it?” said Matthew.
“Well, that comes well from you,” said Jermyn. “You broke it at breakfast this morning:, we had cause to observe.”
“I wonder if I did,” said Matthew. “Perhaps I was in the furthest stage of it. Extremes meet.”
“Well, then, they met,” said Griselda.
“I am not now quite clear what Matthew has done,” said Gregory.
“His best,” said Jermyn.
“No one can do more,” said Gregory.
“Not more than he did, certainly,” said Griselda.
“I can’t even now believe I did it,” said Matthew.
“Shall we go back and realise it?” said Jermyn.
“No, not worth it,” said Matthew.
“Extremes met!” said Gregory.
“I feel that virtue has gone out of me,” said Matthew.
“Well, a good deal did get out,” said Griselda.
“Virtue too,” said Gregory. “No wonder Mother could not bear it.”
“I wonder if I shall be made to pay,” said Matthew.
“I wonder,” said Jermyn. “Let us put it to the vote.”
“What are you putting to the vote?” said Harriet, coming into the room.
“We are voting—” said Jermyn.
“About Matthew’s future,” said Gregory. “Will Matthew’s efforts win reward or not?”
“I cannot say,” said Harriet, looking at Matthew.
There was a silence.
“Didn’t you get off to sleep, Mother?” said Griselda.
“Darling, you see I did not,” said Harriet, stroking her cheek. “I could hardly have got off to sleep, and awakened, and got on my dress, and done my hair, and come down to you here, all in the space of these few minutes, could I?”
“You have been upstairs half an hour,” said Matthew.